Live Encounters Poetry & Writing September 2026
Hooked, poems by Dominique Hecq.
Hooked
between I and am
is a fish out of water
thin king of oceanic distances
it walks streets unfurling
shadows that augur a poem
skin encoded with holes
heart ciphered with motives
and metaphors meant merely
to warn the line as it moves
stroke after stroke
promising the resurrection
of the non-ego
as if the sun could take
the hook from my mouth
Vigil
under the open sky
in the twilight haze
a silhouette emerges from the plain
bloodless, immutable
not the slightest shrub, slightest furrow, slightest breath
a petrified, voiceless presence
suddenly tremors alive
in the emptiness of this vigil of shades
which, yes, in the desert’s heart
becomes spiral, bleeding glow vermilion flow
A proclamation
Golden-leafed sky. A magpie
browses sundown – mother of pearl
nape, flight feathers ebony sheen.
Encased in leather pipes,
the bird splendidly exposes
its throat. Carrolls out.
A wedge-tailed eagle takes off.
Chorus of kookaburras.
Small tarnished world
hushed with pealing.
You hanker for the stars,
your language a relic.
© Dominique Hecq
Dominique Hecq is a widely anthologised and award-winning poet, fiction writer, essayist and translator. She lives and works on Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung land, Australia. Hecq writes in English and French. Her creative works comprise a novel, six collections of short stories and nineteen books of poetry. Together with Volte Face (Liquid Amber Press, Melbourne) and Otopos (Beltway, Rockville MD), her bilingual sequence, Pistes de rêve (Transignum, Paris) appeared in 2024. Errances (Recent Work Press, Canberra) is hot off the press. Among other honours Dominique Hecq is a recipient of the International Best Poets Prize administered by the International Poetry Translation and Research Centre in conjunction with the International Academy of Arts and Letters, and the James Tate for poetry. Otopos has just been long-listed for the Maya Award in the UK.